We recently wrote about Menlo Spark, an ambitious local initiative to achieve climate neutrality in the Silicon Valley city of Menlo Park. The initiative just kicked off its work with a public launch event, and we were excited to see the event bring together community members with many different interests and backgrounds to discuss how they can lead the way forward together.
Menlo Spark is guided by a diverse group of advisors, including Diane Bailey, the Executive Director and a former senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Chris DeCardy, Chair of the Advisory Board and Vice President and Director of Programs at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. We sat down with Chris and Diane to discuss lessons from Menlo Spark for climate efforts and philanthropy more broadly.
What gets you most excited about Menlo Spark?
CD: I’m a Menlo Park resident who wants to give back to the community, and I’ve also worked on climate change issues through my career. I wanted to connect those two pieces. I’m excited that Menlo Spark is working at a community level, in a place that has extraordinary talent, great community cohesion, and abundant resources, to try to go faster and farther than people have generally thought possible.
DB: I saw an opportunity to act on a few key tipping points. First, we’re starting to feel the negative impacts of climate change in a big way. A lot of people are looking to the state, federal government, and international community for solutions, but there are lots of local solutions, too. Second, clean technology is becoming more advanced, and renewable power prices are dropping to the point where clean power might be cheaper than fossil fuels. Menlo Park is a good place for early adoption because it embraces innovation and technology.
How can climate neutrality benefit Menlo Park?
CD: Climate change is happening. Addressing it now will save Menlo Park money in the long run and potentially even in the short run. For instance, if you’re building a parking lot and expect there will still be cars in 20-30 years, should you wire in power for future electric vehicle charging stations? It would cost a few hundred dollars now, but a retrofit would cost many times that. Moreover, Menlo Park has an opportunity to be a first mover, which allows it to win government incentives and attract innovative talent and businesses
DB: Financial savings are a big incentive. For example, a lot of low-income households spend a high proportion of their income on energy bills and could save money with renewable power. Additionally, changes that support climate neutrality improve quality of life. Bike routes, sidewalks, and transit can ensure that all people have the means to get around and make the downtown area more pleasant.
How does Menlo Spark contribute to broader climate efforts?
CD: The exciting thing about an effort like Menlo Spark is that it’s not in isolation. There are many communities that look like Menlo Park in size, governance, and makeup of carbon emissions. Collectively, these communities are a huge part of the US’s climate needs, so there is an obvious opportunity for replication. If we can take advantage of the resources we have here to figure out how to achieve climate neutrality smoothly and efficiently, we can pave the way for others.
DB: Menlo Spark will show that communities that are smaller and more suburban in their structure can make dramatic carbon reductions without infringing on people’s lifestyles. Things like safer bike routes, safer walking routes, and more transit choices make people’s lives easier. If we can prove that doing right by the environment feels good and helps create stronger and more vibrant communities, we will have a model that can spread to other cities similar in size.
What lessons does Menlo Spark hold for philanthropic practice in general?
CD: Menlo Spark embodies the importance of philanthropy connecting to local actors and community needs. First, I hope Menlo Spark can show that giving locally (which accounts for the vast majority of individual and institutional giving) is a really important piece of addressing global climate change. We want to mobilize a lot more local resources to accelerate replication, which is the ticket to changing state, US, and international policy.
Second, you have to be deeply connected to a community and its values to motivate people and make change. In Menlo Park, we care about economic vitality, a strong civic heritage, a vibrant, innovative economy, and wonderful neighborhoods for kids. Everything about Menlo Spark is designed around those deeply-held values to show that moving towards a clean energy future has benefits well beyond addressing climate change. When you’re doing grantmaking at a foundation, somewhat removed from the people on the ground, it’s sometimes hard to really get the barriers people face. We could blame government or residents for not caring, but people have time commitments and constraints, and it’s complicated to figure out what to do first and how to do it. Menlo Spark is about removing those barriers, such as by providing information, reducing transaction costs, and bridging the isolation of government, business, and residents.
What’s next for Menlo Spark?
DB: We want to start implementing measures that get people really excited, give people choices about how engaged they want to be, involve community institutions, and show that this is a community-wide effort of people across all neighborhoods and incomes. Some of our early objectives will include:
- Bringing 100% renewable power to Menlo Park at a comparable cost to fossil fuel power
- Reaching out to lower income households to install solar power
- Building more electric vehicle charging infrastructure, expanding transit through public-private partnerships, and electrifying existing transit
- Getting free energy efficiency audits for all businesses, especially small businesses, to help them save money.